July 10, 2009

Email marketing tip of the day - Test with a customized seed list

Test all messages by sending them to email accounts created solely for testing. All the big ISPs offer free email accounts, so open one or two accounts per ISP. Sending to this list of addresses can provide insight into whether the message is going to the inbox, bulk folder, or is being filtered by the ISP. These test accounts are also an excellent way to check message rendering, and to verify that the ‘call to action’ is above the scroll bar fold. Sending to these seed addresses before, during, and after a mail campaign can be very helpful in gauging overall deliverability to major ISPs.